Latifi tops day two of F2 testing

Nicholas Latifi topped day two of Formula 2 testing at the Bahrain International Circuit. The Canadian stopping the clock at 1m40.541swith his DAMS entry in the second half of the morning session to top the times ahead of Russian Time teammates Luca Ghiotto and Artem Markelov. The afternoon was given over to race simulations, with Nyck De Vries topping the timesheets at 1m41.212s ahead of Gustav Malja and Charles Leclerc.

The day opened to sunny conditions, with the drivers heading out on their medium Pirelli compounds as soon as the lights went green. Johnny Cecotto set the early pace, a 1m41.371s – four tenths faster than teammate de Vries. After a brief red flag Markelov set his pace, but Ghiotto was the first man to break the 1:41 barrier, followed soon after by Leclerc and Norman Nato.

Just after the halfway mark Latifi grabbed P1 with his blistering lap on soft tires, a tenth quicker than Ghiotto, and his rivals were unable to match that.

Following a two hour break, the action resumed with the field mainly focusing on race simulations and pit stop practices. Sergio Sette Camara set the pace until Cecotto improved on the Brazilian’s lap time to go P1. With one hour left in the day, Camara reclaimed the top spot dipping under 1m42s, before Malja also found some extra pace to move up to P2. Camara’s car was found to be underweight, however. Therefore, the MP Motorsport driver had all times deleted.